Why didn’t God warn Adam and Eve about Satan?

We know very little about what was said to Adam and Eve before the fall into sin, but Scripture contains what we need to know about the past. God commanded Adam and Eve, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen. 2:16-17NIV). With this choice, there is a consequence: disobedience leads to death. We know that Eve was aware of the command and the consequence because she repeated it to the serpent (Gen. 3:2-3). “When you eat from it you will certainly die” is a warning. She knew that it was something to be avoided. It was not trivial but important – a life and death matter. Obviously the disadvantages and impact of spiritual and physical death must have been explained to Adam and Eve at the time.

God gave them enough information so that they could make an informed choice, although we have no evidence that Satan was mentioned. If the warning had been more explicit, then their free will may have been eroded.

So God did warn them about not eating the fruit. He said, don’t do it!

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7 responses

Such an easy thing – “Don’t eat it!” Maybe God should have just told them that it was “good” for them, then they would have avoided it and looked for a twinkie instead.
Satan is still using easy things to get to us; “One drink won’t hurt you”. “Ah, go ahead cheat, no one will find out”. “You’re too tired to read your Bible today”.
There are a lot of ways to be tempted – there is only One way to overcome it.

You completely dodged your own question. Also, free will is not “eroded” if more information is given. A more informed and responsible decision could have come from such critical information, especially in this case.

Thanks for the comment Ravi. God certainly told them about the consequence of eating the forbidden fruit, but He may not have told them about Satan. Was it because the consequence of disobedience (spiritual and physical death) was more important than the instrument of temptation (Satan)?

The Beni Elohim That is to say The sons of God are the angels. People are the children of God read Job . The sons of God (angels) were with him when he created the Earth
Job 38:7
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Thanks for the comment Mara. I assume your comment is on my post on Genesis 6: 1-8 titled, “Why was Noah’ family saved while the rest died in the flood”?
As mentioned in that post, “Traditionally the ‘sons of God’ have been understood to be angels, but this is based on Scriptures outside the Pentateuch and on extra-biblical sources”. “Sons of God” has two meanings in the Old Testament; it means God’s people the Israelites in Deuteronomy and angels in Job. I choose the first meaning because Genesis and Deuteronomy are both in the Pentateuch, which was compiled and written by Moses.